Optus Slapped with $12M Penalty for Emergency Call Failures During Major Outage

Optus, a leading telecom company, and its subsidiaries faced a hefty penalty of $12 million issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for a major service outage that occurred a year ago. The interruption critically impacted Triple Zero emergency calls and the company's welfare checks. The penalty was decided following an in-depth investigation and affected 2145 people struggling to make emergency calls and 369 people who were not checked on during the outage.

Chairperson of ACMA, Nerida O'Loughlin, emphasised the severity of the breaches and the critical nature of providing uninterrupted Triple Zero service to the public. According to ACMA’s findings, this significant service failure could have been preventable if Optus had effectively managed and configured its network, specifically its core routers. Alarmingly, the routers were not prepared to handle the unexpected surge in routing information they received that day.

Furthermore, ACMA pointed out Optus’ inadequate out-of-band network capabilities, which are essential for diagnostics and administrative control during service outages. The authority also highlighted other failures identified by a government-commissioned post-incident review, suggesting that this service failure has stimulated industry-wide changes to the regulations concerning emergency call services. 

Despite the hefty penalty, Optimus has offered an apology and acknowledged the magnitude of the issues that have led to a critical review of their operational protocols.

- CyberBeat